Increasing Your Daily Pleasure

I chose Pleasure as my guiding word for the year because I was craving something that felt the opposite of hustle. The opposite of focus and drive and the pressure of shoulding myself to achieve more, more, more.

As someone who doesn’t shy away from hard work, big ambition and buckling down to “get shit done” — pleasure felt a very soft and scary word to declare. I was nervous to share with the world that I wanted to explore ways of simply feeling good in my own marriage, my own body, my own rituals, my own business. my own connection to something larger.

And I’ll admit, my year of pleasure has been full of highs and lows.

Embracing the “art of feeling good” has been harder than it sounds!

With typical Type A drive, I dove right into reading, studying with inspiring teachers and creating checklists of pleasure seeking.

Bahaha.

I know, I know.

6 months into the year and 2 weeks into an offline vacation, I’m realizing the second half of my year of Pleasure is going to look and feel very different than the first.

More being, less doing.

More sensual occupying of my feminine body (dancing, cooking, yoga, singing, swimming in the ocean), less filling my head with non-somatic knowledge.

More channeling my BFF Tawny’s “if it’s in flow” sense of time and plans, less sticking stubbornly to my preconceived ideas of what is supposed to happen.

More sexy time with my husband, less work.

More trust in my own intuition, less worry about getting it right.

Pleasure is the somatic experience of happiness, so trying to think our way to pleasure is a recipe for frustration.

Instead, we must practice presence in our body!

In this video, I cover

1. Stella Resnick’s 4 types of Pleasure Resistance
2. Two Practices I’ve been doing this year to help me get out of my head and into my body

The practices of circular breathing and a 5 sense spin might not be new to you, but I challenge you to incorporate them more frequently with the specific purpose of bringing awareness to your body’s capacity for pleasure.

This simple starting place for more daily pleasure can be used in any situation.

Craving more pleasure from food? 

Slow down. Breath. Pay exquisite attention to your 5 senses. Tune out your mind’s judgement and righteousness.

Craving more pleasure from parenting?

Slow down. Breath. Pay exquisite attention to your 5 senses. Tune out your mind’s judgement and righteousness.

Craving more pleasure from sex?

Slow down. Breath. Pay exquisite attention to your 5 senses. Tune out your mind’s judgement and righteousness.

It’s not super-complicated in theory. In practice? You tell me, babe.

To pleasure! And fully embracing our hedonistic joy!